Fast Food Giant Loses In McDonald’s Vs McCurry Tiff
Fast food giant McDonald’s on Tuesday lost an eight-year trademark battle against a Malaysian curry restaurant after the country’s highest court allowed the latter to use the prefix ‘Mc’.
Malaysia’s Federal Court dismissed an application by McDonald’s Corporation to appeal against an earlier Appeals Court judgment which allowed McCurry to use the prefix.
Chief Judge of Malaya Ariffin Zakaria, reading the verdict of the three-person Federal Court in the administrative capital, said McDonald’s had failed to properly frame its questions when applying to challenge the Appeals Court’s earlier verdict.
“It is unfortunate that we have to dismiss the application with costs,” Ariffin said.
McCurry, which is short for “Malaysian Chicken Curry,” serves Malaysian staples including fish head curry, according to the company website (www.mccurryrecipe.com).
“We feel great that this eight-year legal battle is finally over, and we can now go ahead with whatever we plan to do such as opening new branches,” McCurry owner P. Suppiah told Reuters after the court decision.
McDonald’s, which has 185 outlets in Malaysia, first sued the curry restaurant in 2001 and a High Court ruled in favor of the international fast food chain in 2006.
09/30/09 at 12:09 AM
The recent McDonald’s v. McCurry ruling is not surprising. Just by the three main DuPont factors alone, appearance, sound and meaning, these two marks are arguably not confusingly similar. Add to that the difference in menus, and the difference in trade dress, and you have a pretty strong case for McCurry, which the panel seemingly accepted. The letters “Mc” cannot be totally, exclusively owned by one entity worldwide. And it’s not as if people are going to mix up McCurry with McDonalds. Now, if McCurry used the golden arches, had a clown and similar characters associated with the restaurant, that would be problematic. Those elements were not present in this case. On our site http://www.trademarksprotected.com we help with these trademark issues and any trademark questions.